


Agent provocateur

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Vignette, basically a choose-your-own-adventure, but Emmry is less clear, intimations of Phoster, jumping to the cliffhanger, late Season 1 ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 07:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17845400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Jed Foster prepared himself for President Lincoln to sit down to tea with Jeff Davis. Because clearly the world had turned upside down.





	Agent provocateur

“Emma!” Mary exclaimed.

Mary’s raised voice was nothing, the merest whisper, in contrast to the sharp sound of Emma’s hand, the sound of her barely calloused palm striking Henry Hopkins’s cheek. Jed could almost believe a bullet’s scream, the ricochet of the pistol, was less brutal than Emma’s violence, the first time the belle of Alexandria had lifted her slender white hand in anger. Henry stood still. It was the same way a mountain withstood a storm or a leaf was sometimes held aloft, motionless because too many forces pushed at once. His eyes were wide; they revealed nothing.

Emma let her hand drop to her side. She didn’t cradle it, nor look to see whether it had turned red. She was staring at Henry as if whatever he said next would be the answer to everything. The end of the world or the beginning of another. 

“Emma,” Mary said again, her voice lower, more anguished. Why? What did she understand? Jed studied her dark eyes the way he had when he’d been dying for the needle and she’d been the only one to come for him. She was beautiful, he knew that the way he knew the sun rose in the East, the scalpel drew blood. Mary was distraught and Emma stood an arms-length from the honorable chaplain and Jed wished Matron would appear to laugh and laugh.

“I didn’t—” Emma began, broke off. 

“What in heaven’s name?” Jed said, surprised that he thought of heaven, that lofty, leafy realm that would suit Mary so well and him not at all, not unless someone was there to welcome him, not just a guide like Dante’s Beatrice. He’d need a patroness, someone with power, someone who’d be listened to. 

“Miz Mary?” Jed didn’t turn to see who asked. It wasn’t Samuel, so it didn’t matter.

“Not now,” Mary said sharply. Now was only to answer for Emma’s bruised hand, Henry’s cheek printed with it. The queer shared sensation of disaster, revelation. Something needed to be said, a diagnosis that they might not be able to live with—or without.

“Emma?”

**Author's Note:**

> I had a little idea that it would be fun and possibly stir up some plot-bunnies to start with a highly charged encounter and no explanation-- what could be more provocative than Emma slapping Henry in front of Jed and Mary? Anyone who wants to take a shot at the next chapter is welcome to (though I fear sagiow may just lop off more heads!)
> 
> For a change, the title is just that, not a quotation.


End file.
